In this forum we often rightly criticise builders....

Simeon, youre a good eg, but sometimes stuff like this makes me wonder if you are maybe a little under represented in your team of experts.

You have provided countless referrals for leagl help to members of this forum, but it seems your own legal representative may not have offered you some advise to which, on the face of it, seems pretty low cost/low risk and very sensible as a course of action. The bank may even then provide you the necessary information on how to make the claim. Presuming the funds were in fact coming from a loan and not the client's reserves of cash.

Arent there also avenues with the council you can take to have the council remove them from teh property given no OC has been issued?

How did the client get keys to the property without settling?

sorry just caught up on the remaining posts i didnt see before i posted. no need to respond lol

Hi Ponzutwo

Thanks for your comments.

We had a really good session with our lawyer Tuesday and we have worked out a plan. I don't want to be too public with it yet, but essentially as the buildingexpert advised in an earlier post, this process now opens up the avenue to claim for all of the additional work we did which in dollar terms is quite substantial. One example is that we have the ability to charge 15% on all PC items, these people spent over $100,000 so that will be quite a hit. I am not sure that they appreciate what will be coming their way.

The council aren't interested in helping unfortunately.

We haven't handed over any keys. We are still in posession of all the keys but we didn't change the standard passcode on the samsung smart lock on the front door. We naively took their word that they wouldn't move in.

But you are correct in terms of tightening up our documents. I guess it's not until you go through a process like this that you realise the huge holes in your contract. We have been using an unamended standard agreement which I promise you is going to be amended to take care of this.

The good news is that general construction law is on our side.

Our lawyer is an absolute killer, so we are just doing a few things at our end to get him prepped so that he can go to town on these people

Anyhow, watch this space. I promise I will give a full update when I can

Cheers

Simeon

love a good drama. This looks promising. Shame bimboy isnt around to offer you some sage advice on how you coud have avoided all this with some BIM.

That is so funny!

Great call. Thank god he lost his passcode

my guess is all the reports got him banned. or he was crushed by his own head after it hit critical mass. Shame his BIM didnt pick up that failure mode.

I have helped a lot of builders in your situation, if you need help PM

Thank you so much will do, would be great to have someone like you on our team when needed

Hope you get this sorted soon Simeon.

Thanks! Appreciate it.

I am hoping to have some news next week that I can post publicly

Hope your build is going well

Ah no that absolutely sucks. It's interesting to hear that it could happen in reverse like that. I'm sorry your business is taking a hit, hope you get the outcome that is right.

Any progress Simeon?
Kneecaps next?!

Hi Budapest

I am dying to post about the plan that we are enacting. But I dont want to give anything away yet.

Hopefully later this week I might be able too.

Watch this space

Cheers

Simeon

Hi Everyone,

I have been promising an update, I have some news but nothing too significant.

Basically the legal advice and strategy is that we are preparing a claim that encompasses both the final PC claim as well as everything we didn't originally claim but were entitled too. So this will be a significant amount of money.

Our lawyer who is an absolute killer is confident he can get us a judgement. This claim is being prepared in terms of dotting the i's and crossing the t's and will be ready to be issued next week.

However in the interest of trying to resolve this amicably, my partner went and sat down with him for one last discussion and offered him a $15,000 discount if he could pay us in the next few days. I am not particularly happy about that but if it helps avoid a fight I understand why he offered it.

He indicated that he would pay us early next week, but the excuse was that he hadn't paid because he requested some additional joinery at the end ( $2800 shaving cabinets) and they were not installed. We didn't install as they weren't completed at PC and we haven't installed them since as we haven't been paid. So basically withholding $224,000 because of a $2,800 shaving cabinet.

Basically at this point I don't believe a word that he says. I don't think he has even issued our claim to the bank.

So, come next week, if we don't have payment I am letting the lawyer off the leash and I am going to fight this one to the death.

Hopefully I am wrong and we see some money next week.

Cheers

Simeon

has he been put on notice that the claim will eb made next week or will it be a surprise?

Write reply...

Hi,

Can you explain, are you submitting final invoice or has that been issued?

Hi Pedro,

Sorry for the delayed response.

Been treading a fine line on this one whilst my partner has been having side conversations with the client trying to get money without it escalating further.

But we have now past the 2 month mark since the squatters moved in, and in my mind there is literally no hope at this stage of seeing any money voluntarily. For instance last Thursday we were promised payment that day before he flew off on his 20th overseas trip for the year, it's now Tuesday and not a single dollar has arrived.

It's incredibly frustrating as the profit from this job was literally my Christmas pay, so now I have to go without because a selfish thieving, ly&ng POS, living in a $6.5-7m home, with brand new everything thinks he can get away with not paying his final payment.

Enough ranting.

Anyway, to answer the question we are lodging a claim under the security of payments act. It is a very technical process. I have been through it several times for commercial projects in my Metricon and LBD days. It is not a process you enter unless you have too as the paperwork is quite intense, but it is an expedited process for builders and tradies to get claims awarded for non payment.

So here goes.

Simeon

Too bad you can't charge rent!